AN: For the 'Strangeness of September' Chit-Chat Authors Challenge. I chose Honey Month for my subject, and a Hotch/OC pairing. I don't know what I'm going through, but I have been on a Hotch kick lately…..although I suppose there are worse things. Is the first time I've taken part in one of the challenges….so we will see what happens.

"We lived for honey. We swallowed a spoonful in the morning to wake us up and one at night to put us to sleep. We took it with every meal to calm the mind, give us stamina, and prevent fatal disease. We swabbed ourselves in it to disinfect cuts or heal chapped lips. It went in our baths, our skin cream, our raspberry tea and biscuits. Nothing was safe from honey...honey was the ambrosia of the gods and the shampoo of the goddesses." (Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees)

Hotch was dead tired. He and the team had just gotten back into town after being away on a case for the best part of two and a half weeks. It was a doozy of a case; 14 bodies, and that was after their arrival, all mutilated. There was a two man team of UNSUBS and they had been busy little psychos. As it was now, Hotch sat in his car, in his designated parking space at his apartment building, resting his head against the back of his seat trying to get the energy to get out of the car and go in. He couldn't figure out what he had been thinking by having the team fly back to Quantico when he did. A normal man would have just said to sleep it off in the hotel room over-night and leave first thing in the morning. But everyone was itching to get home and be with their families.

Morgan wanted to get back home to Garcia who was currently eight months pregnant with their first child; coincidentally it was going to be a girl.

Rossi wanted to get back to see Morgan's mother who had been staying in town for a couple weeks to help Garcia out; that didn't burn Morgan's biscuits as much as he once thought it would. He'd let the old man live another day.

Reid and JJ couldn't wait to get home and get Henry. Ever since JJ's divorce from Will, she had been spending an awful lot of time with Spencer cultivating a relationship between him and his son….yes, Spencer's son. JJ had found out that Will had stepped out on her and filed for divorce within 48 hours. But she had also come clean about the fact that Henry was in fact Reid's child; her indiscretion with Reid had happened once. It was during the time that she and Will had been on and off again with no real plan. Once things got serious and Will made his intentions known, JJ did the right thing and settled down with him. Knowing that she had done the very same thing early in their relationship, JJ could have forgiven Will if he had only cheated one time. But it seems that he had made it a habit lately; and not just with one woman…..oh no. Her devilish Cajun had been fooling around with four other women! Fooling around. On JJ! Hotch had to admit, JJ was one of the most beautiful women he knew personally. Will was a moron, simple as that; the man had to have some sort of brain damage.

Blake wanted to hurry home to her husband. They were going to try to have a date night the next day to try to work a little harder on their marriage. The last couple of cases had really made Blake stop and think about things a little bit; she decided she had been a little selfish all of these years wanting things her way so much of the time and had really put her husband on the back burner almost entirely. After the last couple of cases, Blake realized that her husband, for all of his faults and short comings, was a great guy and she needed to do more to show him that.

Hotch himself….he couldn't wait to get home to see Melita; she was this tiny little woman that worked at the Smithsonian in the Ancient Egyptian exhibition. Ironically enough, it was Jack that met her first. There was some sort of school field trip….the class was learning about King Tut, Ramesses the Great, and a few others. Melita was the guide that their school group had. Jack had become quite taken with her immediately. Luckily, there had been no case to take Hotch away from home that week; most of his work had been largely consulting by phone with some local law enforcement to help tie up loose ends in some of their cases. Jack came home that day from the field trip just near to bursting with information about Ancient Egypt. Everything out of his mouth was 'Melita said….' At first it made Hotch laugh a little at his son's excitement; but then, like with any parent of a young rambunctious child, he was starting to regret signing that permission slip. He loved Jack to pieces and he loved that Jack was all the sudden interested in something new; but for the love of Christ would he change the subject?

Then there had been a case that had taken Hotch out of town around the time of Jack's eighth birthday; Hotch told him to think of what he might want to do for his birthday when the case was over. It didn't matter what he picked out to do, they could do it. Later, upon arriving home, Hotch questioned his sanity.

"Daddy, I want to go to the museum…."

With those little words Jack had lead his father to the point he was at now. Jack didn't want to go to just any museum. Oh, no, he wanted to go to the Natural History museum at the Smithsonian. Jack was about to pop a stitch to show his dad the Egyptian Exhibition. Hotch swore that boy turned out to be more like Reid on a daily basis.

Now, here he sits in his car, desperately tired. But he had to go inside at some point or his darling Melita would come out and look for him. She wasn't above waking the neighborhood to get answers either. Lord how he had missed her though. She was almost as much of a hand full as Jack.

God help him. He was tired; but he kept picturing Melita naked. It was a side effect of getting to know her. She was gorgeous and if there was a man or woman alive that hadn't pictured her naked at least six times a day then there was something wrong with them. She was only about 5'3 to start with. Then she had this long dark hair that hung down her back in a waterfall of soft curls; her eyes were very nearly the same shade of brown as her hair, and they were large, almost doe eyes. She had one of the best hour glass figures he had ever seen…..second only to Garcia's according to Derek, although Hotch was sure Derek was biased. He better be or Garcia would make him pay.

Hotch had finally worked up the ambition to get out of his SUV. It was nearly 2 AM; all he wanted was to grab his woman and fall into bed, totally unconscious before his head even hit the pillow. He had asked Melita to move in with him about a month ago; he had grown so attached to her so quickly, he couldn't even sleep very well without her in his bed. But try as he might she had held off on agreeing to his request. She still kept her little apartment that was closer to her place of work even though she spent a lot of time at his place. Hotch could never quite figure that one out. Melita was an open book on nearly everything so far as her work and her interests went; but she was firm about keeping her own apartment. Hotch had always thought about having Garcia dig through Melita's life within an inch of zygote, but that would be a lack of trust…and he could give her some space, that wasn't too much to ask.

As he entered his apartment, he noticed a lamp on over by the sofa; Melita had waited up, reading…..it was either going to be 'Beowulf' or 'Canterbury Tales'…..again. She had admitted to being obsessed with trying to decipher the true identity of the original author of 'Beowulf', and she had a long and protracted argument currently on going with Reid over the possibility of doing so; Hotch actually hoped she would win, but he wasn't expecting her to….nobody else had been able to do it in nearly 1,000 years…..

"Honey, I'm home." Hotch announced with as much life in his voice as he could muster.

"Do I know you?" Melita teased back.

"Woman, you wound me." He replied, walking into the kitchen to get something to drink.

"I wound you?' Melita was trying her best to sound indignant, but considering the surprise she had planned she was finding it hard not to laugh. "What about the fact that my man has been away for so long that I am beginning to forget what he even looks like; I've been all alone in the world, not a friend to my name; and all I got to show for it is maybe three phone calls and two texts from some man named Aaron. I wound you….."

Hotch snickered as he opened the cabinet to get a glass; Melita was so dramatic; one would swear that she had worked at the theater with Garcia at some point.

"Um, honey, where did all the glasses and cups go?" Aaron was looking into the cabinet where they should have been and much to his consternation there was a grocery stores worth of bottles of honey.

When no answer was immediately forth coming, Aaron turned around to see what the problem was. Melita was there, standing just in front of him; a devious smile painted on her lips, and a wicked gleam in her eyes.

"Did you know that September is considered 'Honey Month'? And that buckwheat honey can be used to help relieve the coughing that comes along with an upper respiratory infection….well at least in children ages 2-18? Or that it can improve athletic performance and heal wounds?"

"Have you been talking to Reid?" Aaron asked as Melita stood on her toes to give him a welcome home kiss.

"Hardly, he's still angry at me over the whole Marlowe/Shakespeare thing. Now, shut up and kiss me like you mean it." And, if Aaron had to be honest, he didn't mind that command at all; it was those damned rosy, bow shaped lips, he had no chance.

As he broke the kiss though, he couldn't help but ask….

"Exactly how many bottles of honey did you buy? And did you leave any in the store?"

Settling back down on her own two feet, untying his neck-tie, almost more concerned with getting him undressed than answering his questions she sighed.

"Sixty. I bought sixty bottles of honey…But, I could only fit 58 of them in this blasted cabinet." She really seemed bent out of shape about that judging by the tone in her voice. She seemed to be studying the pattern on his tie rather closely.

"Pray tell, what are we going to do with 60 bottles of honey?"

Melita laughed, almost to the point of a little squeal of delight on the end and kissed Aaron on the neck, right where his shirt collar folded over, and then turned on her heel, dragging his tie from around his neck.

"If you really want to know…..' she had managed to make it almost to the hallway, Aaron was watching every move she made; she was taking off the dress shirt of his that she had been wearing….one button at a time before it fell to the floor….And oh. Dear. God…..she was stark naked underneath.

"If you really want to know,' she started again, getting his attention, 'then why aren't you following me, lover?"

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Ok, folks, there you have it; my first attempt at one of these challenge pieces. I know it took me a while to get around to the theme of 'Honey Month' for this piece, but I actually snuck a bit of it in under your noses. I picked the name Melita for two real reasons actually. The first reason was in reference to Queen Victoria's grand-daughter Victoria Melita. And the second reason is based on the things I read about the name; according to one source, the name is supposed to mean 'honey' or 'sweet'. And in the other source I was able to go to the name means 'bee'. So I thought 'why not?'….Let me know how you like it, if you like it. I can only get better if ya'll give me reviews (good or bad). Peace.